Only the Sturgeon
portage, about a mile long, separates it from the lake of the Illinois.
We must be near it now."
She gave but a look at the map, then glanced at the cloud-streaked west
and at the shore.
"Try to make it. Try to reach Sturgeon Cove," she urged.
I was thinking of something else, so I answered her only by a shake of
the head. Perhaps that angered her. At all events she smote her palms
together with a short, soft little clap, such as I use when I call my
dog.
"I do not wish to land here," she said, throwing back her head at me
quite as she had done when I thought her a boy. "I wish to go on. Why
not?"
I motioned Pierre to the shore. "Because you would get wet," I
answered stoically.
She flushed as redly as if I had hurt her. "And if I did?" she cried.
"Better discomfort than this constant humiliation. Monsieur, I refuse
to be made a burden of in this fashion. It is not fair. You made your
plans to reach a certain point, and you would go on, rain or otherwise,
if it were not for me. For me, for me, for me! I am sick of the sound
of the words in my own brain. I am sick of the excuse. Each added
sacrifice you make for me weighs me like lead. It binds me.
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